This "story" took three books to tell?!Luke and gang find Zonoma Sekot and try to convince it to join the cause. Leia and Han and gang get a warning that the communication stations with the Unknown regions are under attack. Tahiri still fights against her inner battle.NOTE: Based on audiobook and novel.*YAWN*Uh, sorry, you woke me up. I just finished listening to "Reunion" on audiobook, and, boy, was I bored. The last two books (specfically "Refugee") made me varying degrees of p!ssed off, which at least made the listening entertaining. This book...pah, it barely registered.After two books of poking around the galaxy, Luke finds Zonoma Sekot. Apparently, all Mara had to do was use her super Force Navigator ability to find the damn planet. Nice to know. And why couldn't she do this back in "Remnant", thus saving us a lot of wasted time? Then our characters prowl around on Zonoma Sekot, meet up with grumpy Ferreoans (sp?), and generally have to beg, plead, and cajole Sekot into joining the cause against the Yuuzhan Vong. There is something about the magistrar being kidnapped, along with worthless Danni Quee, and of course, Jacen reverts back to his pre-Vergere "I don't know what to do with my life, I'm a pacifist, don't fight, all aggression is equal" crap. Kid, you've had plenty of time to "figure it out". You "figured it out" in "Traitor". Quit changing your frakkin' mind! But really, the resolution of this trilogy spanning story is boring, and really is nothing more "We found Zonoma Sekot, what do we do with it?"Back to Han, Leia, and all them. They do their trivial mission, Tahiri gets locked in her mind and must bind her two selves. This part is great, well done, very good, and definitely the highlight and only reason to drudge through all three books (though I would NOT recommend it, even for that reason). Dragging Jaina into Tahiri's mind only to get stuck there and comatose? Not so much. Let her be a pilot, quit making her a damsel in distress. Then, oh, nos! The Yuuzhan Vong are attacking the ONLY COMMUNICATION STATION to the Unknown Region where Luke and Mara are, and GOD FORBID we lose contact with them ever, so we'd better travel across the galaxy and to hell with the people who are DYING, Luke and Mara are more important! But don't worry, it's just another relatively boring, Bantam era mission (though I must admit, the aliens were pretty cool) where Han and Leia save the day with a wriggle of her nose and quick moves with the Falcon (with the help of Paelleon, who decided to hop on by for tea??? What is with this?). *YAWN*Droma returns with his Invincible All-Knowing Ryn Network, because isn't that so cool? No, I didn't find him cool in "Hero's Trial", I didn't find the Ryn Network "cool" in "Remnant", and having BOTH in this book make me have heartburn. Please, Droma, go back into your corner of the galaxy and just die.Given what actually happens in these books, I still am puzzled that THIS was the story that had to take place over a trilogy. Why? Why couldn't we have one book where Zonoma Sekot is found and the Imperials brought into the Galactic Alliance? It would have been easy, and the other two books could have been written by someone that can write, like Greg Keyes, Matthew Stover, or almost anyone other than Shane Dix and Sean Williams (who, for some odd reason, is STILL writing Star Wars fanfic--I MEAN!!). If you absolutely have to know what happens, skip "Remnant" and "Refugee" and read only this book. Otherwise, do not bother at all.
The best part of this book was the epilogue--because finally we see some character development and heart behind the story.Unfortunately most of the Force Heretic trilogy (part of the New Jedi Order series) has been fairly boring and slightly confusing. As I've mentioned on the other two installments, there are parts and ideas that are really quite good, but the execution is hit and miss.I honestly felt the trilogy could have been cut down to one or two books. There's just too much going on that ends up redundant or not mattering, and hence most of it hasn't been very memorable.In particular, there needed to be a main character, one we follow and identify with. But Reunion is plot-driven, not character-driven. This makes it difficult at points to want to keep reading, because the plot is fairly average.Zonoma Sekot is good, though frankly, I was underwhelmed by the sentient world, which should be pushing the bounds of my imagination. A few bright moments shone through, with the airships and the colors and sounds of the jungle.Tahiri's is the best character development, and is quite enjoyable to read. It's also some of the clearest writing.All things said and done, you could skip it if you want and just read this: (view spoiler)[Jacen and friends search for a sentient planet, Zonoma Sekot. They find it after two books. It joins the war, for better or worse. The Imperials help the Galactic Alliance. Nom Anor starts a cult so he can rise back to power. Tahiri must merge with her Yuuzhan Vong personality and it's good. The end. (hide spoiler)]
Do You like book Reunion (Force Heretic, #3) (2003)?
Finally, the Force Heretic trilogy reaches the point, the characters actually get somewhere, and we can move on to more plot impacting, final novels of the New Jedi Order. As with many reviews, this one does contain spoilers. Like the previous two books, Force Heretic: Reunion, follows three story lines: Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni, Saba, Tekli, Captain Yage, and the crew of the Widowmaker searching for Zonama Sekot, the living planet that is supposed to play a key part in the war; Leia, Han, Jain
—Katrin von Martin
The best of the Force Heretic trilogy, but still entrenched in an amateurish writing style, and still not up to par with other entries. Finally, we've gotten to the good bits. The ambling story with Tahiri has reached a conclusions (and a purpose), and we finally see the mysterious Zonama Sekot. Okay, so some of us saw it in Rogue Planet, but now we're seeing it through new eyes and learning what's become of it since. Despite my complaints with the series, I still have them all 4 stars because I did still enjoy reading them. I can certainly understand why many were disappointed with them, but I feel if you're able to turn off your critical eye and just float along with the current, you may find yourself having a good time.
—Kim
Back to interesting things happening. There's still some marking time here as certain things are less exciting than others - chiefly the ones that are more tangential to the whole Zonama Sekot thing, although Nom Anor's life on the lam within the bowels of Coruscant is also fascinating for its further look into the tensions within the Yuuzhan Vong caste system, a cool subplot through a number of the NJO books.Although this volume also hits on one of my pet peeves in EU books, where it tries to retroactively tell our characters things that they only learned this late in the EU continuity because George Lucas only revealed them in the prequel trilogy after books were already written.How different would something like the original Thrawn Trilogy be in 2003? Suppose this was the first continuation novel at all. The offending incident in Reunion is where Luke learns that his father and Obi-Wan Kenobi had also been chasing Zonama Sekot a long time ago. These things only slip in because during the time the NJO books were coming out, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were released. I wish that the EU could have just kept plowing on with minimal acknowledgment to those movies. I guess they had to pretend that the people who'd been steadfastly reading EU books liked the prequel movies. Maybe most of them actually did. Even among friends of mine who liked the original Star Wars trilogy, like two people actually were reading these books. I have met no one my age who liked the prequel movies when all was said and done. Perhaps it's just the sign of where things are being handed off to the next generation.This would be a great set-up novel for the final NJO book: it gets to an exciting conclusion of its own three-book plot while setting up the last one. Only it turns out there's one more to squeeze in before the final book. Well, that's okay. Money talks.
—Mark
